MORRIS DICKSTEIN
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ments . "Fragments are the only forms I trust ," wrote Donald Barthelme,
as the influence of the more titanic modernists like Joyce gave way to
such inspired miniaturists as Kafka and Borges, negative visionaries
whose work undercut all mythic inclusiveness. In late-sixties writers
like Barthelme or Wurlitzer the sense of disconnection is complete,
as it is in the Weatherman phase of sixties radicalism, where futility
and frustration spawn random violence . Barthelme and Wurlitzer
write as if they were surrounded by the curious artifacts of an extinct
culture , which they plunder like collectors , or stroll past vacantly like
sleepwalkers .
